by Terry Brooks
But he kept his thoughts to himself, and he made it a point to warn Prue not to reveal to their prisoner anything of what had happened. He wasn’t sure that it mattered if Bonnasaint knew about Phryne’s escape, but he couldn’t see any benefit in telling him, either. Better if he were left to wonder what their intentions for him really were.
They climbed into the foothills until it was dark and made camp in a grove of cedars that hid them from view and sheltered them from the wind, which had picked up again. Tethering Bonnasaint to a fresh tree, they set about fixing a meal, building a fire, and warming bread and what was left of the salted meat they had brought. They added some potatoes and carrots—the last of those, as well, because they hoped to be able to get fresh supplies at the Elven camp on the morrow. Originally, Pan had thought they would resupply in Arborlon, but he had abandoned that plan the moment Prue had returned with the news about Phryne.
Sitting by the fire with his food in front of him, he found himself wondering how he had gotten to this point in his life. Not that he didn’t understand the choices or the circumstances that had determined the nature of his journey, because he did. He understood them all too well. It was mostly that he had trouble determining at what point his life had changed direction so completely that he had gone down the road that had brought him here. It might have been his decision to follow those strange footprints that he and Prue had discovered all those weeks ago when they had tracked the agenahls. But he couldn’t be sure. Looking back, it was all jumbled and blurred, his memories of things no longer as clear as they had been. Or even as important, he conceded. What difference at this point did it make how he had gotten to where he was?
And yet it did. It mattered. He wanted the sense of order and purpose he believed understanding would give him.
He was still pondering this dilemma when Prue said, “I’d better feed our friend.”
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT might have been avoided if either she or Pan had been a little more careful or better rested or if her newly revitalized instincts had been able to detect even a hint of what Bonnasaint was so carefully hiding. But the assassin was good at concealing things, and he did so successfully here.
Prue picked up the plate of food that she had left warming by the fire and walked over to where Bonnasaint sat watching. He gave her a smile, which she ignored, and said, almost cheerfully, “I was afraid you were going to let me starve.”
“No danger of that,” she replied, moving over to kneel beside him. “Just lean forward a little so that I can feed you. There’s ale, as well. Here, try this.”
She reached out with a spoonful of carrots and potatoes, and in the next instant his arms were around her neck and his fingers were folded across her face. Spoon and plate went flying as she was jerked about and captured in his embrace, arms pinned to her sides. She felt something warm and slick against her skin from where his hands gripped her face and saw patches of red on the sleeves of his tunic.
Blood.
He had rubbed so hard at his bonds that he had torn the skin around his wrists and used his own blood to slip the ropes that bound him.
Panterra was already on his feet and rushing to her aid when Bonnasaint shouted for him to stop. “Don’t come any closer, boy. If you do, I’ll pop her eyes right out of their sockets. I know how to do it; I’ve done it before. You might think you can stop me, but you’ll never reach me in time. How will you feel if that happens? How would you like it if she were really blind? Throw down that staff.”
Through gaps in Bonnasaint’s fingers where they latticed over her face, Prue saw Pan hesitate. “Do it!” the other screamed. “How blind do you want her to be? More blind than she is? More than she pretends to be? Throw down the staff!”
Pan did as he was told and stood watching. “You don’t even have a weapon,” he pointed out. “You can’t get away.”
“I always have weapons—even if they are only the fingers on my hands. I warned you that this would end badly. Now you see. Drop your knives, as well. Then move off to one side.”
Some of Bonnasaint’s blood had leaked from his wrists and down Prue’s face, and she could taste it on her lips, bitter and metallic. She wanted to spit it out, to clean it away, but his fingers were stretched across her mouth. She tried struggling, but his hold on her tightened at once.
“Patience, little one,” he purred. “Be good, and I won’t harm either of you. I just want to get away. That’s all.”
She knew without having to think about it that he was lying. He had no intention of leaving them alive. That wasn’t who he was. Once he had them under his control, he would kill them both. He wouldn’t give it a second thought.
How could I have been so careless? How could I not have noticed that the bonds were loose on his wrists? Even my instincts weren’t enough to smell this out! She cursed herself for being such a fool, for leaving herself open to this sort of attack. She was supposed to be protecting Pan, but she couldn’t even seem to protect herself.
Bonnasaint lurched to his feet, hauling her up with him. “Now this is what’s going to happen,” he said to Panterra. “I’m going to leave and I’m taking her with me to make certain you don’t do anything foolish. Don’t try coming after me or you’ll find pieces of her scattered along the way. Just stay right here. I’ll let her go when I’ve gotten far enough away that I feel safe. She can walk back from there.”
He paused, and then added, “I’ll need to take your knives with me. You don’t mind, do you?”
Prue suddenly remembered her own knife, tucked in her belt just under the loose front of her tunic, down beneath where his arms encircled her. She moved her right hand experimentally—just a little—to feel the hilt beneath her fingers.
“I’m not letting you have a weapon,” Panterra said at once.
“You aren’t in a position to argue about it. Now, don’t move.”
Bonnasaint began working his way across the clearing toward the discarded knives, dragging Prue with him. The lurching movements allowed her to squirm and shift without drawing his attention. She worked her hand under her tunic front, and her fingers closed about the handle of her knife.
“I might have to take your staff, as well,” Bonnasaint added suddenly, flashing Panterra a grin. “Just to make certain you do what you’re told. I can leave it behind with the girl when I let her go.”
He wouldn’t do that, Prue thought. He wouldn’t leave anything behind but bodies, not once he had possession of Pan’s knives. He was saying one thing, but he was planning something else entirely. He wasn’t the kind to leave anything to chance. He had been sent to kill them, tried once already and failed. He would finish the job this time.
They were standing over Pan’s discarded weapons. “Just stay calm,” Bonnasaint was saying as he loosened his grip on Prue and reached down.
Prue closed her eyes. She had never used a knife on anyone. But she had to do this. She had to make herself do it.
As Bonnasaint’s fingers brushed the hilt of Pan’s knife, Prue yanked her own from its hiding place, wrenched herself about so that she was looking directly at him—her face so close to his that she could feel the sudden exhalation of his breath and see the frantic recognition in his eyes—and drove the knife into his midsection all the way to the hilt.
Bonnasaint screamed and clutched at her, trying to hold her fast. She fought against him, breaking free as his strength failed and the shock of what was happening paralyzed him. He staggered backward, pushing himself away from her, reaching down for the knife in his stomach. There was blood everywhere, and Prue could not look away. His eyes were locked on hers as he dropped to his knees.
He was still alive when Pan reached her, wrapped his arms about her protectively, and moved her back. Then he toppled over, his eyes empty and fixed, his body rigid.
Strangely, she did not find herself crying. The last few moments were so surreal she could hardly believe they had even happened. She knew what she had done. She had done what she needed to d
o. She had kept Pan alive. Wasn’t that all there was to it?
Then something akin to rage surged through her as the full impact of her actions flattened her momentary calm and everything began to slant sideways.
“We’re going to need a new plan,” she said to Pan, and then, finally, she managed to look away.
PRUE SPENT THE NIGHT WRAPPED IN PAN’S ARMS, pressed close against him beneath their blankets. She slept a little, although not much, and he stayed awake with her, conscious of the changes in her breathing, of the moments when images of what she had done surfaced and caused her to shiver uncontrollably, and of the dreams that turned to nightmares and made her cry out. She was not handling this well—although he could hardly find reason to think that he would have handled it any better—so he did what he could to help her through it.
They left Bonnasaint pretty much where he had died, Pan taking time to move him out of the open and beneath a huge old cedar where he could be concealed by heavy boughs and hidden from view. He would have done more, even for someone as loathsome as the assassin, but he lacked a digging tool and there were few rocks at this level that he could use to build a cairn. So he did what he could to protect the body, knowing that in the end nature would do the rest.
Sometime during the night he fell asleep, and when he woke the sun was just cresting the mountain peaks, the sky was thick with rain clouds, and Prue was gone.
He panicked, throwing off his blanket and hurriedly pulling on his boots, looking everywhere at once as he did so. Once on his feet, he shouted her name, heedless of who might hear, and was relieved when she called back. He followed the sound of her voice to a break in the trees that allowed a clear view of the valley south and found her sitting on a grassy patch looking out over the countryside.
“Don’t do that again!” he snapped irritably. “I didn’t know what had happened to you!”
She gave him a wan smile. “Sorry. I just couldn’t sleep anymore—or even pretend to sleep—so I got up and came here to think. I forgot that you would be waking up.”
She looked so beaten down that he instantly regretted his words. “I just got frightened, that’s all. It isn’t your fault.”
“That’s about the only thing that isn’t.” She looked away again. “I really messed us up, Pan.”
The way she spoke the words was troubling. She sounded as if she had given up. “You did what you had to do and there’s nothing wrong with that. If you hadn’t killed him, he would have killed us. You know that.”
“I keep thinking that if I could have wounded him … or used the knife on his arms or legs and just …”
He put his arm around her and hushed her. “You could have tried to do a lot of things. But any one of them would have gotten you killed. You did the one thing that would save us both.” He paused, trying to find something more to say, to speak the words that would reassure her. “You did what the King of the Silver River asked you to do. You protected me. And yourself. You didn’t mess us up.”
She shook her head in denial, but said nothing.
“He was too dangerous to keep around anyway. I should have gotten rid of him earlier. I should have taken him into Arborlon and let the Queen have him. He wasn’t going to help us anyway. He was sent to kill us, and he meant to do exactly that.”
She nodded, but still said nothing.
“You know he wasn’t going to let you go. Or me. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do.” She looked at him again, and he saw that she was crying. “What I don’t know is how I’m going to live with what I did. I killed him. I don’t want to be someone who kills people. I know it was necessary and that he was going to kill us and I didn’t have a choice. I know all that. Rationally. But in my heart I also know that none of that matters.” She caught her breath. “I am breaking apart, Pan. I am all in pieces about this, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
He watched her silently, unable to think of what else to say. “You didn’t have a choice,” he repeated finally. “You had to kill him.”
“Stop saying that!” She ran her fingers through her red hair as if to pull it all out. “Just stop!”
“What else am I supposed to say? You did the best you could. You can get past this. Give it a little time, Prue. Stop torturing yourself.”
She was on her feet then, standing over him as if she might crush him with the weight of her rage. “You stop patronizing me, then! Stop treating me like a child! You want to know what you can do? I don’t know! I don’t know what I can do, so how am I supposed to know what to tell you? Figure it out for yourself. Be my big brother and tell me something that matters. Tell me whatever I need to hear, no matter how unpleasant. Just be honest with me!”
She wheeled away and stalked to the edge of the clearing, hands on her hips, head bent, shoulders shaking. She was crying hard now, but seemed enraged that she was doing so. Or that she was in the place she had found herself. Or that the world had mistreated her so. Or all of the above. In truth, he couldn’t say.
“I know one thing I can tell you!” he shouted over to her. “I can tell you that no matter how bad you feel about yourself or me, no matter what happens next or how things turn out, I will be right there with you all the way! I can tell you that!”
She didn’t say anything, and she didn’t stop crying. He stood up, but he didn’t try to go to her. He stayed where he was, waiting her out. If there was anything more to say, she would have to say it. He was all out of words that mattered.
It took a long time, but eventually her body stilled and her head lifted. She stood where she was, looking out across the valley. Then she wiped her eyes, turned around, and came back over to him. Instead of stopping she walked right past him.
“That’s more like it,” she said. “Let’s get our packs and start walking. We don’t want to waste any more time reaching Tasha and Tenerife.”
He followed her progress as she disappeared into the trees, heading back to their camp. He wanted to tell himself or maybe even her that he would never understand women, but he had a feeling he wasn’t the first man to formulate this opinion and very likely wouldn’t be the last and that it really didn’t matter anyway. So dismissing this useless assessment, he took a deep breath, exhaled loudly, put the entire matter behind him, and tramped after her.
WITHIN THIRTY MINUTES, they were hiking through what remained of the foothills heading up into the mountains toward Aphalion Pass.
For the first two hours of their trek, they barely spoke at all, concentrating on the climb, hiding within a shroud of silence where they could think things through. The day remained cloudy and gray, the sun little more than a hazy glow behind the cloud layers, the temperature dropping and the winds growing stronger as they continued their ascent. Once or twice, they saw goats and sheep higher up on the rocky precipices and in patches of meadow only a short distance below the snow line, but nothing of Men or Elves or anything else that walked on two legs. They would have stopped to eat, but there was no food left save for a little bread and water, which they shared as they walked.
More than a few times, Panterra thought to say something further about the events of the previous night, but each time he felt the temptation he resisted it. He knew that nothing he said at this point would help the situation. Prue would talk about it again when she was ready and he had to leave it at that.
So when he finally began talking again, he chose the matter of what they were going to do now that Bonnasaint was no longer with them.
“You said last night we needed a new plan,” he opened the conversation, trying to sound relaxed and casual. “I guess the first thing we have to do is pretty much the same as before. We have to find Phryne.”
She shrugged. “Except that if Tasha and Tenerife don’t know where she is or have some idea of how to find her, we might need to start worrying about that demon. He won’t be waiting around for us to finish helping Phryne. He’ll already be looking for us.”
“First, he has to find
his way into the valley.”
“He will have already done that.”
He glanced at her. “All right. But he would have to find out that we live in Glensk Wood and start looking there.”
“He would have found out all about us by now, including that we live in Glensk Wood. You didn’t meet him. You can’t know what he was like. He isn’t human, though he looks it on the surface.” She paused. “He’ll have found out everything, and he’ll be searching already.”
Panterra thought about it. “Then maybe we need to find him before he finds us.”
She shook her head. “That’s a dangerous game. I don’t know that finding him at all is the right thing.”
“What are we supposed to do? Do you think he will give up looking for us and go away?”
“Don’t be smart with me. You know he won’t. But maybe something will happen to him in the meantime. Demons can be killed. We know that from our history. The boy Hawk killed one. Kirisin Belloruus killed another. I think his sister killed one, too. Isn’t that so?”
He gave her a quick smile. “I don’t know that we can count on someone else doing what I think we’ve been given to do. Think about it. The King of the Silver River sent you back to protect me. That suggests he suspects—maybe knows—that sooner or later I’m going to need you with me to face this demon, because I am going to have to face him.”
They walked on in silence awhile more, watching the snow line grow steadily closer. It wasn’t far now to Aphalion Pass. Ahead, high above the rock-strewn slopes, winged predators circled in slow, steady sweeps. Now and again, one would drop like a stone to snare its prey.
Which are we? Predator or prey?
Pan wondered if they had a choice.
It was past midday when the pass came in sight, its dark split clearly visible even in the diminished light of the cloudy day. When they were still five hundred yards away, an Elf appeared from hiding to challenge them. Pan told him they were friends of Tasha and Tenerife, and the sentry seemed persuaded just by mention of the Orullians and did not ask them anything more, although he did take note of Prue’s eyes and gave her more than one close look. Satisfied that they posed no threat, he took them up into the pass where most of the Elven Hunters were still working on building their defenses.
